Devotions and Revelations
by Stevie V. Scrivello
Summary: He’d often raise an eyebrow at the younger man’s odd behaviors and wonder if the quirks were adding up to something after all. 50 sentences, 50 scenarios, BurnsxSmithers. Written for the 1sentence community on Livejournal.


The following work was originally written as a response to a claim made on the "1sentence" theme community on LiveJournal, which basically sees you taking a theme set and writing a sentence for each theme based around your pairing of choice.

The drabbles themselves are not in any chronological order, though a good handful are based directly off of episodes of "The Simpsons".

Before I begin, allow me to say that I don't own The Simpsons, and I apologize wholeheartedly for any OOC-ness or semicolon abuse on my part.

-SVS

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**#01 - Comfort**

Charles Montgomery Burns woke from what was obviously a rather bad dream; in moments, Smithers was by his side comforting the old man in which ever way was required.

**#02 - Kiss**

Smithers wasn't sure exactly how Mr. Burns felt about that kiss they'd shared, back when they'd both thought the world was ending; his boss seems to have accepted the threadbare excuse he was handed and forgotten it all, but there are still times when the assistant will look longingly at the old man and wonder if there might be a chance that incidence between the two might repeat itself...and if Burns might have enjoyed that kiss as much as he had.

**#03 - Soft**

Mr. Burns was stony and merciless where business and other public matters were concerned, but he had a soft side that showed itself in degrees, a side which only Smithers had the privilege of seeing; the matter gave the younger man a sense of entitlement, as if he was in on a wonderfully intimate secret between two lovers.

**#04 - Pain**

Perhaps he wasn't the only one whose heart constantly ached from the pain of rejection, Waylon thought, as the latest of Monty's lady loves walked out of his life for someone younger, or kinder, or more possessed of the time to hand out the attention they so craved.

**#05 - Potatoes**

Normally, Smithers took it upon himself to put together Mr. Burns' favorite breakfast: a single pillow of Shredded Wheat, some steamed toast, and a dodo egg; however, due to the lack of dodo eggs at the moment, that morning, he decided to try something a little different: fried potatoes, which his boss took to surprisingly quickly.

**#06 - Rain**

The wind had carried away their umbrellas, forcing Monty and Waylon to make their way through the rain and to the limousine, getting thoroughly soaked and a bit disheveled in the process, but still remaining undampened in spirit.

**#07 - Chocolate**

The boss and his assistant went through the box of chocolate, which contained the photograph of the four Simpsons at the bottom, together, piece by piece, savoring each bite until both men, stomachs aching with the richness of the sweets, decided that it was futile to eat any more of it.

**#08 - Happiness**

For Mr. Burns, happiness was power over his enemies and the acquisition of his desires, whatever they might be at the moment, while Mr. Smithers defined happiness as simply being able to remain near the man he loved .

**#09 - Telephone**

Despite the numerous times he's heard that peculiar, archaic greeting Burns employs when answering the telephone: "Ahoy hoy", Smithers finds that he never really has tired of it.

**#10 - Ears**

Though he was over 104 years old, Burns' hearing was still quite acute, and though his friend didn't know it, the plutocrat had caught some of the wistful, longing entreaties Smithers sometimes muttered under his breath.

**#11 - Name**

It didn't matter how close they really were: both men knew one another almost exclusively on a last-name basis, usually only resorting to the use of the other's given names when in the heat of a quarrel.

**#12 - Sensual**

There was something strangely sensual, serpentine, and seductive about the way Mr. Burns behaved as he oversaw the multitudes of worker drones at his beloved nuclear power plant with a calculating eye and a unmerciful sense of judgment, and oh, Smithers would give anything to tell him just how attractive he found all of that.

**#13 - Death**

Death is something Waylon Smithers prefers not to think about; he fears it, not for his own sake, but for the sake of the powerful-yet-fragile old man who might lose his battle with it one day.

**#14 - Sex**

Neither the boss nor his assistant are strangers to lovemaking, but that doesn't stop Smithers from wondering if he and Burns will ever have the truly deep and emotional kind of sex: with each other, naturally.

**#15 - Touch**

Smithers' touch is like Smithers himself: firm, unwavering, dependable, and oddly reassuring, Mr. Burns muses as his assistant "accidentally" brushes a hand over his shoulder- and there's no way his yes-man will _ever _hear any of those thoughts, never out loud.

**#16 - Weakness**

Both men dealt with some sort of weakness from day to day; Burns, despite his amazingly vibrant spirit, had to contend with his frail body, while Smithers always found that, despite his strong determination to do what his boss thinks is right, there were weak spots here and there that set him to deviate from that course whenever Burns went too far.

**#17 - Tears**

Tears are the one thing that Mr. Burns has never, ever shown, not even in front of Smithers, for he believes to indulge in such a pathetic thing would be to show weakness to a man who's clearly attached to him for his power; in actuality, Waylon really would love him anyway, tears or no tears, for wasn't crying human, even when the human in question was a rich, often cruel and unrelenting man?

**#18 - Speed**

There are times when a typical day at the power plant will go absurdly quickly for both men, leaving them both relieved that the typical dealings with the inept worker drones didn't approach anything resembling catastrophic levels, and a little saddened that they hadn't done anything to savor the day in itself.

**#19 - Wind**

A sudden gust of wind at the company picnic almost sent Mr. Burns flying; luckily, Smithers was there to catch him and hold him steady until the myriad flurries finally ceased.

**#20 - Freedom**

Once in a blue moon, Mr. Smithers envisions what it would like to be free from work and responsibilities for once- but then again, to be free wouldn't be meaningful at all if his boss was never allowed to indulge in that luxury.

**#21 - Life**

When it came right down to it, Waylon found that he could be continually grateful that he had come under the employment of a man like Charles Montgomery Burns, yet he still wondered if the idea of he and his boss ever living a life together as a couple was pushing fortune's generosity too far.

**#22 - Jealousy**

The emotions threatened to get the better of him whenever he saw someone else getting too close to Burns; whether it was the time when that Simpson fellow had been temporarily promoted or the numerous times his boss had courted women, Smithers always had trouble keeping his feelings of jealousy under wraps.

**#23 - Hands**

Every time Mr. Smithers has to help him open a container or press down a stapler, Mr. Burns is left confused: exactly why did that man always have to let his hands linger over Burns' own even after he'd finished assisting him with the object in question?

**#24 - Taste**

Mr. Burns certainly does _not _have "old man stink", Smithers decides as the wrestler who was about to purchase the now-destitute plutocrat's mansion departs; his boss has an enchanting musk, like well-preserved antiques and crisp dollar bills- and he probably tastes even better.

**#25 - Devotion**

There are moments when Burns will give the subtlest hint of how fond he really is of Smithers, and the assistant will exult inwardly, happy that years of devotion might actually pay off one day.

**#26 - Forever**

The ways C. Montgomery Burns manages to evade death despite his advanced age make Smithers wonder if the old man might go on forever, though it's probably a futile hope.

**#27 - Blood**

Mr. Smithers still sees Homer Simpson as an oafish lump of a man, a lackadaisical layabout no better than any of the other carbon blobs from sector 7-G, but that doesn't stop him from being indebted to the safety inspector; after all, if it hadn't been for the Simpson boy's blood, Mr. Burns would not be around today.

**#28 - Sickness**

Having to meticulously attend to an injured Burns, fresh from being pushed out the window thanks to that Simpson character, didn't bother Smithers at all: rather, it helped to insure that he was needed where he'd feared his boss would never require his services any longer.

**#29 - Melody**

Every now and then during work, but not often, Mr. Burns will hum something, typically from long ago, under his breath, and Smithers will try and place the name of the tune.

**#30 - Star**

Springfield had been plunged into darkness that night so the stars could come out and shine, making a lovely tapestry on the night sky; the fact that Burns and Smithers were out on the mansion balcony admiring the stars, both so close together they were nearly embracing, made it all the more special.

**#31 - Home**

While he does have his own apartment, deep inside, Smithers considers both the power plant and Burns' mansion to be his home, for there's no one to await him and make him feel needed, however coldly, at the former.

**#32 - Confusion**

They'd known each other's company for many years now, but there were still numerous things about Waylon Smithers that thoroughly vexed Monty Burns; he'd often raise an eyebrow at the younger man's odd behaviors and wonder if the quirks were adding up to something after all.

**#33 - Fear**

As far as Smithers knows, Mr. Burns doesn't know fear at all; and perhaps the assistant's secret anxiety, that his boss might someday vacate the place he once occupied in Springfield, more than makes up for it.

**#34 - Lightning/Thunder**

Burns and Smithers were much like lightning and thunder, the rather imposing ans authoritative appearance of one, followed by the less conspicuous but still powerful presence of the other.

**#35 - Bonds**

Love, however unspoken, was a powerful thing: for Smithers it was what truly kept him from turning his back on his boss when the he did slight the assistant, and he was certain that Burns might have been held by the same sort of bonds.

**#36 - Market**

After learning that Mr. Burns had been committed by his grocer, of all people, and placed in the Springfield Retirement Castle for talking to ketchup, Smithers vowed that he would never allow his boss into that sort of situation ever again.

**#37 - Technology**

"That would be the device that combines the picto-tube with the auto-typesetting machine?" Mr. Burns asks Smithers, who nods, thinking that particular combination of words is one of the most intriguing descriptions of a computer he's ever heard.

**#38 - Gift**

It was obvious that nothing material he could come up with would ever compare to the numerous treasures the old man possessed, yet he knew somehow that his continued presence and devotion after all this time was a present in itself, and that Burns, despite his refusal to acknowledge the fact, truly was grateful for it.

**#39 - Smile**

Mr. Burns often smiles when things are going how they're supposed to, accompanying the expression with tented fingers and an utterance of "Excellent, but he rarely smiles as a gesture of warm, purely non-businesslike, contented happiness, as Smithers knows too well.

**#40 - Innocence**

Burns had already become rather cold and avaricious as a boy due to his rearing by the heartless billionaire who had taken him in, while Smithers had to struggle with the reality that he never was quite able to fit in with other children, that he was somehow...different; neither of the two had been allowed any pure sense of childhood innocence

**#41 - Completion**

Montgomery Burns' analysis of Waylon Smithers couldn't have been more correct: he truly was and always would be the sobering yin to the older man's raging yang, and like both halves of the Taoist symbol, neither could really be complete without the other.

**#42 - Clouds**

During break time, Mr. Burns and Mr. Smithers occasionally gaze out the office window together and pick out cloud formations: one man sees dollar bills and stacks of gold coins, while the other sees hearts and figures that look a lot like two men embracing.

**#43 - Sky**

As the two sat back and enjoyed the ride on the private jet, the assistant edged a bit closer towards his boss, under the pretense of getting a glance out the window; he simultaneously regarded the vast sea of blue outside and marveled at how close Burns was letting him get- so _this _was what it felt like to touch the sky.

**#44 - Heaven**

The day came when everything added up for the richest man in Springfield and he began to look at his assistant with new eyes, though he certainly wasn't about to share that nugget of information, to treat his longtime companion and would-be lover to that so-called heaven, just yet...

**#45 - Hell**

Looking back on it, Smithers wasn't sure what experience had been closer to hell: the knowledge that Mr. Burns was lying in a hospital bed with a bullet wound, or the nagging suspicion that he himself might have been responsible.

**#46 - Sun**

The time Mr. Burns decided to block out the sun was when Waylon Smithers knew that his boss had pushed the metaphorical envelope off the table, an assessment that cost him his job, albeit temporarily.

**#47 - Moon**

The light of the full moon filters gently through the window as the younger man tucks his employer into bed and heads out of the room, supposedly en route out the mansion and back to his apartment, only to wind up sitting in a chair by the old man's bedside and watching him sleep, until he too nods off.

**#48 - Waves**

The ocean around Springfield, which glints like a jewel in the sun, seems to stretch on into eternity; as Burns and Smithers stand at the edge of the beach and regard it, they agree: it's nice to look at, but the knowledge of what gets dumped in the water is enough to deter the both of them from actually _swimming _in it.

**#49 - Hair**

What little hair Monty Burns has left is a frosty silver-gray color, and soft to the touch, as Smithers has observed while washing it.

**#50 - Supernova**

The setting sun reminded both men of a spectacular explosion, perhaps one of the nuclear variety as seen from far away; slowly, it began to wane, and the plutocrat and his assistant sought out each other's hand to hold, unified as one as the spectacle they'd witnessed gradually faded until it vanished from sight.


End file.
